Note 116 — Women in Greek Poetry
Reading edition
It is true that, later on, the magnificent heroism of Iphigeneia extorts from Achilles what is perhaps one of the earliest declarations of love from a man to a woman that we know:
Ἀγαμέμνονος παῖ, μακάριόν μέ τις θεῶν ἔμελλε θήσειν, εἰ τύχοιμι σῶν γάμων· ζηλῶ δὲ σοῦ μὲν Ἑλλάδ’, Ἑλλάδος δὲ σέ. (l. 1405.)
But this utterance, made under such exceptional circumstances, cannot counteract the effect of what has gone before; and, anyhow, it is a curiously isolated expression, and rather a qualified one.